The Devil's Cave: A Bruno Courrèges Investigation (Bruno Chief of Police 5)

different from those he had found in the punt. They were the original white church candles, smeared in black paint. The wax had not been a hospitable surface for the paint, which had run and pooled at the foot of each candle.
    ‘How old were these candles?’ he asked Marcel.
    ‘New this year and never lit.’
    ‘Well, they’ve been lit now. How long would you say they burned for?’
    Marcel shrugged. ‘Two or three hours, maybe a bit more.’ Bruno turned to the Madonna. Here the black paint seemed different. It hadn’t run. He leaned forward and sniffed, then put the tip of his little finger against the paint. It was slightly sticky and smelt of turpentine, as if it were oil-based. The paint on the candles looked water-based.
    There was a jumble of footprints in the dust before the Madonna and what could have been cigarette or cigar ash at her feet. In the passage outside he found one small cigarettestub, or perhaps the end of a cheroot. It was brown. As he lifted it to his nose in his gloved hand he scented that elusive incense again. He bagged it, and told Marcel to keep the place secure until he could persuade J-J, the chief of detectives for the
Département
, to assign his overworked forensic team to the inquiry. He’d have to stress the link to the dead woman, but since that appeared to be a suicide, it wouldn’t be easy. His only other find was a screwed-up piece of coloured paper in the bottom of the beached pedal-boat, which turned out to be a bubblegum wrapping, most likely left by some tourist the previous year. He bagged it anyway, along with the empty vodka bottle.
    ‘What do you think, Bruno?’ the Baron asked.
    ‘The most important thing is there’s no dead body.’ He didn’t mention his suspicions about the publicity stunt. The Baron was his friend, but he was also a clever businessman with a financial interest in boosting visits to the cave.
    ‘As for criminal damage, there’s nothing that a few hours of cleaning can’t fix, so there’s not much of a crime here,’ he continued, leading the way down the passage to the boat. ‘It’s curious and it’s troubling, but it won’t be easy to get the
Police National
to take much of an interest. Looking at that bubblegum wrapper, I’d have said it was most likely kids larking about, except for the goat’s head and the break-in. Even so, I’d start by asking your own kids if they’re behind this. Do they have access to the keys?’
    Marcel looked disappointed, and a little angry. ‘I already asked them before they went to school, and all the keys are accounted for. That’s the first thing I checked.’
    ‘When are you planning to open?’ Bruno asked him.
    ‘This weekend.’
    ‘Well, leave the boat and chapel untouched until we can see if I can interest the forensics guys in this. It might be a day or two.’
    When they crossed the lake to the inner shore, the Baron asked Marcel to carry on with his work on the café and asked Bruno to stay behind.
    ‘There’s something you may as well know,’ he said when they were alone. ‘There’s another way in.’
    ‘And Marcel doesn’t know?’
    The Baron shrugged. ‘I never told him but he may have found it. My father showed it to me when I was sixteen. It was something they used in the Resistance, and maybe at other troubled times.’
    He led the way past a rack of calcifying crockery and along the passage leading to Napoleon’s Bedchamber to the far side of the cave where stood the display called The Organ, an array of stalagmites of steadily diminishing height and width. Off to one side was a triangle of three gigantic stalagmites known as the Dragon’s Teeth, so close they were almost touching. Another few centuries and they would be. The Baron eased his way into the narrow space between them and the cave wall. There was no room for Bruno to join him, but he peered through a gap to watch the Baron bend down and began brushing thick layers of pebbles and rock dust to one side. A wooden trapdoor with an iron ring appeared and with an effort the Baron levered it open, took a torch from his pocket and turned it on so that Bruno could see stone steps descending steeply.
    ‘Follow me, and close the trapdoor behind you.’ The Baron descended carefully, facing the steps that had so much space between them it was like descending a ladder rather than a staircase. As Bruno followed, his own torch held between his teeth, he noticed dust thick on the steps. It had been some time since